Apr 1, 2011

Move over chocolate chip cookies, I just found my favorite new cookie! The flavors of banana nut bread in a scrumptious oatmeal cookie. Experience a wonderful array of textures and flavors in every bite; nutty, chewy, salty, sweet.

After making my Low Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies last week someone commented that they liked using mashed bananas in place of applesauce and that sparked an idea. If I could take everything I love about banana nut bread and make them into a cookie, how amazing will that be? Well I can tell you... AMAZING!

As noted on my Low Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies recipe, it's crucial not to over-bake these if you want them chewy. The banana puree makes them moist and if overcooked they will become dry so if you're not sure if your oven runs hot it's probably best to take them out a minute earlier. Ripe bananas are a must!

A Warning To All: Only make these if you have people to help you eat them, they are highly addictive! Once again, serving size is two cookies, you'll thank me for that. Have a great weekend everyone!

These are great cookies. I made the Martha Stewart version and calcualted them to be 3+ points each. They added chocolate chunks (I substituted chips) and it was great. Thanks for making this recipe more WW friendly.

Gina, I just wanted to thank you for this site. I cook from it every single week. It is wonderful! I recommend it to everyone, from family to facebook friends, or to anyone that talks about being on weight watchers or trying to eat better in general. Can't wait to try these :)

I'm curious. You said that we can subsitute Splenda, but the amounts you gave are 1/4 cup, when the Splenda pkg says to use equal amounts of sugar to Splenda. If I go by that, then I should be using a 1/2 c. Splenda brown sugar blend and a 1/2 c. Splenda white sugar. Right?

Wow I just made cookies last week with almost the same recipe! They were called "banana bread cookies" and had raisins in the recipe instead of nuts but I'm definitely gonna try your recipe Gina! Sounds good with the nuts and you are right about them being addictive, when I made the banana bread cookies last weekend I was with 2 friends and we finished all the cookies! They are soooo good and highly addictive

I just made these today, except I did a bit of a combo between these cookies and the chocolate chip cookies from last week. I didn't have applesauce, so I used 1 extra ripe banana, but I love chocolate so I did mini choc chips instead of nuts. They turned out great!

Okay so I'm making these now...and if they taste as good as the batter then these are gunna be soooooo yummy! :) I had a question...I substituted mini chocolate chips 1/2 c instead of the nuts (3/4 c), used whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose, used yogurt butter instead of butter and used splenda brown sugar (1/4 instead of 1/2 c since that what it would call for) and kept the white sugar as white sugar. Does using no nuts and whole wheat flour cut any points?

If these are anything like the cookies from last week... I truly have to have a party or something before I make them-- they can't be hanging around the house. I ate 7 of those cookies the other day!! I just couldn't stop!

If you use chocolate chips in place of nuts, the poiunts remain the same.

I don't use splenda, but researched on their website and it says to use half the amount of baking blend than you would use for sugar. When I checked the points, they stayed the same with Splenda. If I'm wrong about this let me know. I prefer using sugar, I wouldn't feed my kids artificial sweeteners and splenda gives me migraines.

And yes, I think these would be a wonderful breakfast cookie!!! I ate some for breakfastmyself actually!!

OMGoodness... I just took my first batch of these out of the oven. They are devine! I omitted the nuts. I will be making these alot! Next time I may add a handful of mini chocolate chips. Thanks again for this recipe!

These are the most delicious cookies! The only other ones that compare are the chocolate chip oatmeal ones you posted last week. Both big hits at my house! I can not believe that they are low fat. Thank you so much for all of your recipes. I love to cook and when I diet I always miss making yummy things. You've changed that and made cooking fun again!

OMGosh these are so good! I too replaced the nuts with dark chocolate chips. DELISH!! Gina~ I can't tell you how much easier you have made cooking healthy be. I also love how you strive to cook with natural ingredients too- ahhhhh- I so appreciate you!!!!

Oh yum!!! I have some banana nut oatmeal that I just love! These look delightful. I love the addition of the banana. Oatmeal cookies are my favorite. AND I have a ton of bananas in the freezer that I have to use up before we move in a couple weeks. Thanks for the recipe!

I made these this morning--another winner!! I split my batter in thirds and made them one third regular (as per recipe), added raisins in a third, and chocolate chips in the other third. Three kinds cookies for the price (time wise) of of one batch! The bf loves them all! Thanks Gina!

My sisters do not eat "light" meals. Because "they don't taste good at all". I am treating them to an entire home cooked meal, including desserts, this weekend with skinnytaste.com to back me up. They don't know the recipes are light. I think I might include these. I will let you know how it goes. `Mandy

You have to try these cookies!!! I did today and LOVE them. Absolutely delectable! I cannot believe how good they came out. Needed to step away from the cooling rack! This is the BEST cooking site I have ever run across! I'm a weight watcher and use this site a lot for my family cooking. Everything has been a success! Keep up the great work!

These are really delicious - even my non-cookie eating husband loved them! Thankfully I am mailing most of them to my son at school - they are too tempting to keep in the house! Is it really 3 T of batter/cookie? That made a huge cookie, and I would not have gotten 30 out of the recipe...I would have enjoyed the huge cookie though!

Another wonderful recipe! To measure these cookies (as well as the oatmeal/chocolate chip cookies of a couple weeks ago), I used an ice cream scoop, got 15 mounds, then cut each in half. Perfect size and exactly 30 cookies.

I made these last night and I think I like them better than last week's recipe (and that's saying something!). :) I did some with raisins instead of nuts and the rest with chocolate chips. Fabulous! You are a lifessaver, Gina. This site has saved me from weight loss boredom and kept me on track. I am so grateful!1

This is insane! I absolutely love these. I think I made mine too big, I got 22 cookies, so I need to add them to my tracker to check. But they are so good and so worth WHATEVER the point value becomes when I input them. Thanks so much! This was our dessert after arroz con pollo (second time making this).

So good!!!! And this has given me some ideas for my morning oatmeal. @KayVeeBee, i also made this as dessert for arroz con pollo dinner tonight. Seems like we all are doing dinner and dessert by Gina! :)

These are absolutely delicious! Thanks for sharing Gina!! They make for a great snack and my kids just gave their stamp of approval. :)I truly appreciate all the time you take to post new recipes & pictures for all of us! I use your website 2-3 times a week fo rrecipes and highly recommend you to all of my friends!! Thanks again, you are a gem..... Dawn

I made these last night and I know that they're not going to last the weekend! I didn't tell my husband that they were low-fat and he never noticed. The small amount of butter gives them a nice crispy crunch on the outside and the middle is soft and moist. My modifications: I used a whole frozen banana that I defrosted in the microwave, I used a little less sugar, I used King Arthur white whole wheat flour, and I ran out of quick oats so I had to use about 1/2 cup of Old Fashioned. I also added 1/4 cup of white chocolate chips and 1/4 cup of peanuts instead of walnuts (inspired by my favorite peanut butter that is delicious with bananas). Thanks so much, Gina! This will be my go-to cookie base from now on!

Wow. these are great. My husband keeps asking me why I'm making all these sweets if I'm on a diet (I made your pineapple cupcakes at the beginning of the week). I tell him - if I can stick to my diet by "treating myself" to homebaked goodies, then I will keep right on doing so. these are so good that I would make these for people who didn't have to watch their waistline!

I used 1/4 cup splenda brown sugar (there are calculations on the back) and the full 1/2 of splenda white sugar (the package states it measures cup for cup like sugar) and subbed the walnuts with raisins. They came out delicious! Thanks for another great recipe.

Wow! Gina, I have been eyeing these since you origianll posted them, but finally got the chance to whip them up tonight...they are delicious! My 9 year old wanted more more more! Thank you for your on-going inspiration!

I made these the other day to bring to an Easter gathering and they were a huge hit! I split the batter into two batches - to one I added coconut and the other I added white chocolate chips. So easy and delicious, thanks for a great recipe!

Just made these with my kids and they are delicious! I had 2 very ripe bananas I wanted to use so I threw them both in there and they were scrumptious!! Not sure what the extra banana would do to them but it did not seem to affect them too much.

I just made these and they cooled a bit but still warm...OMG THESE ARE AMAZING!!!!!! I still have yet to find a recipe here that isn't fabulous...and WW friendly! I really can't believe that two of these cookies are only 5 points. They are decent size cookies too.

Just gave these a shot and they look great! Haven't sneaked a taste, but I too used two smaller bananas and it seemed to be okay. Hubby is also not a walnut lover, so used raisins instead. We shall see. Thanks Gina!!

These cookies are fantastic! YUM :) Beautiful photos as well. I mixed everything by hand and subbed whole wheat flour for the white and extra virgin expeller pressed coconut oil in place of the butter. I didn't have a silpat and just used some room temp coconut oil to grease the pan a bit. Delicious all around!

I just baked these cookies and they came out very tasty. I used pecans in place of the walnuts (my husband does not like walnuts) plus I added semi-sweet chocolate chips (my kids must have the chocolate not to mention "me"). They are kinda cake like but have a lot to chew on with the nuts, chocolate chips and oatmeal. I made sure they were in the oven for only 8 minutes on our oven because it runs "hot". Thanks for the great recipe Gina!! :)

I just took these out of my oven and they smell just wonderful! I recently just started WW on Monday... time to lose the rest of the baby weight :-) I love your site and have cooked off of it before starting WW. Thanks for all your hard work!

Just wondering, have you tried to make no bake cookies low fat? My husband just loves them but I can't have them in the house without eating them!

Just pulled these from the oven....house smells wonderful! Followed recipe for the most part. Had no nuts on hand, so I used semi-sweet morsels. No quick oats; so I used rolled. Then realized I didn't have enough for the 2C. Made up the difference (about 1/2C) with a multi-grain which included oats, rye, barley & wheat. To form the cookie, I used a 1T ice cream scoop; which got me 32 cookies. Had to bake them a bit longer than the recipe stated to get them golden around the edges.

I induldged in my two. YUM. Had to pack up the rest or I'd be in serious trouble!! Will test them out on hubby this evening. Visiting my daughter this weekend, so will be sure to take them along.

I knew these were going to be awesome before they even went in the oven. Just the batter smelled of banana nut bread. They didn't disappoint at all. They were delicious. A previous comment asked about leaving the nuts out and points value. I only had 1/2 c of walnuts instead of the 3/4, so I plugged the whole thing into recipe builder and got 4 points for two ccokies instead of 5. So, as long as I did it right, yes.

OMG I just love your blog!!!!! i have tried 4 recipes and all of them have worked out great.

I made these but used apple sauce instead of banana, and I mixed 3 types of nuts - pecans, macedamia & almonds, toasted first. They are delicious. Can't wait to try some of your thanksgiving inspired recipes :)

I went on a banana frenzy tonight and made these cookies (bc my favorite thing in this world is banana bread) and made your pumpkin banana bread...both are truly AMAZINGLY SCRUMPTIOUS! The cookies were a hit at my husbands football game (men running up to me asking for another!) and the bread is for my eating pleasure as breakfast for work. Thank you for all your posts, I make a lot of recipes from here!

Gina, I was wondering if you've tried this cookie or a variation of it with rolled oats, as opposed to quick. I tend to like the heartier texture, but more importantly I have a huge canister of the quaker ones to use up!

Seriously...don't even bother making just one batch. They're so delicious that you're going to want MORE so DOUBLE IT UP!!!!!!!! Made these for my kids after school snack today and they, and my husband, LOVED them.

These have been a big hit in my family and everywhere I take them, even for my husband who swore he wouldn't eat them because they were oatmeal cookies, my daughter informed me later he was eating them up when I wasn't looking.

I just made these- I also added 1/2 cup of mini choco chips. These are probably the BEST cookies I have ever tried in my life!These are like cookie form of choco-chip banana bread (one of my favorite things.) Just amazing! Thanks so much for the recipe!!!

Hi! I played around with this delicious recipe, and made it a little bit more healthy! 3 tbls of oil instead of butter, only 1/4 c of honey instead of 1/2c sugar 1/2c brown sugar, two whole bananas (or a jar of banana baby food... they were delicious!

Baked a batch on the banana nut oatmeal cookies using your recipe. They were great. Today I baked another batch of oatmeal cookies except instead of using ripe bananas I substituted 1/2 C. of left over mashed sweet potatoes and added 1/4 C of raisins. Very moist and chewy.

These cookies are delicious! I've made several batches already. Some with the walnuts, some with raisins, some with nothing at all. I keep telling myself it's okay to have 20 of them because the ingredients aren't that bad for you. Right? :)

I just came across this recipe and immediately made it. SO good. I used whole wheat flour but other than that, I kept it the same. Thank you for the calorie/fat/WW points count! You have a new avid follower on your hands!

Made these this morning with my 2 yr old. Subbed in whole wheat flour and rolled oats. For the 2nd batch I added a tbs of ground flax and another tbs of banana. These were awesome. Seems like a very forgiving recipe...... Absolutely delicious!

I have tried a lot of your recipes and have found them all to be excellent, although I haven't commented until now. I needed an oatmeal cookie recipe and made these last night after searching your site. After scarfing down 3 last night (in addition to a whole lot of raw dough -- eek!), I am now eating them again (cookies for breakfast!!), and can't believe how great they taste. They are still incredibly soft the next morning! Thanks for the great recipe!

These are one of the best cookies I've ever made. So good! and so bad...I want to keep eating them! Thanks for another amazing recipe! Oh also I had rolled oats on hand so I used those, and pecans not walnuts. I dont know if rolled oats and quick oats are the same but the cookies were fabulous either way.

I made these with 2 Tbsp of Chia Seeds, 1/2cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips and left out the walnuts. Delicious!! I only got 21 cookies out of the batch, but using the Weight Watchers calculator, one cookie is 3 points, or 2 cookies is 4 points.

I'm just beginning to learn how to bake and I love the fact that I only have to use 2 tbsp of butter instead of 1/2 cup like a lot of other cookie recipes and STILL come out with delicious cookies! The only I thing I did differently was just use a whole cup of light brown sugar because I ran out of granulated. You are right about the airtight containers because OH MAN I can't stop eating them! [munch munch] Thanks for a great recipe!

These cookies are to die for. My whole family loved them. I wanted to make these again today but had no nuts or chocolate chips, so instead used applesauce instead of the banana and cinnamon chips instead of the chocolate. Oh and I used old fashioned oats this time (all i had) and they turned out just as great. Thank you for your fabulous recipes.

I have a reeeally ripe banana that I was about to throw out until I decided to look to see what use good 'ol Gina might have for it. :) I shall be making these in a bit! For any other non-nut lovers out there, the cookies are 2 pts/piece without nuts. Looking forward to eating these later!

I just wanted to let you know that I am obsess with your page!! I make one of your recipes a few times a week..I add protein powder to this cookie recipe, it makes a GREAT snack before my workouts. I LOVED your stuffed Pepper soup recipe...made it last week. I post everything I make from your site on my page One Pound at a time https://www.facebook.com/1poundatatime And I have Pinterest boards http://pinterest.com/madrick91/dedicated to my favorite recipes from Skinnytaste. Yes! I am your biggest fan lol "O))

Made these Monday night, all gone in a few days! I used white whole wheat flour, regular old fashioned oats, and 1 cup of mashed banana and 1/4 cup of white and brown sugar. Plenty sweet! and that also cut down on the calories and carbs, to my calculations about 60 cals for one cookie.

My girls and I loved these! I was going to make my same ole Betty Crocker cookbook recipe for banana bread, but then I remembered seeing your post on these banana nut cookies! So glad I made them! Thank you!

I've got a question. It's more curiosity than anything. I just want to know what you think. I am living in Germany and I have never seen baking soda anywhere, unless you go on the US bases, or buy from specialty stores for 7 EUR a box! So I often have trouble when baking recipes from the US. I have tried several substitutes for baking soda, but have had home runs and strike outs.

You are much more experienced with baking than me. What would you suggest I use as a substitute for baking soda?

Yum! Just made these :) I changed two things, mainly to save calories, but also because I was out of white sugar! Truvia and Spendla brown sugar blend were the only substitutions and they still taste great!! (plus saved some fat grams!)

I make these frequently. This is a very forgiving recipe. My favorite substitutions are who.e wheat flour instead of white and coconut oil instead of butter. The slight coconut flavor remains and adds a new level of flavor while being healthier than butter.

I made these, and they turned out round and very dry. I followed the recipe to a "T", yet they never spread at all, and nowhere on the recipe did it say to "pat them out to round shape". That's very important to add this step in order for you to have a round shape. Otherwise, they're just a ball.

I have to let you know, since finding this recipe I've made these SO many times, they're my favorite cookie ever. The first time I made them I misread and added two STICKS of butter instead of two tbsp and let me tell you- best cookies ever, but still, I love making these when I have a banana or two that has become over-ripe. THANK YOU for this recipe!!!

This are amazing. I'm in love. I substituted ALMOND BUTTER for the butter. YUMMMMMM! I also used whole wheat flour. Next batch I might try lessing the sugar or substituting honey, but even if I don't cut anymore calories they are coming out at just 79 calories each (I only got 20 cookies out of it) and very low fat. Thank you for a great recipe!

I baked these tonight! They are heavenly! I subbed dark chocolate chunks for the walnuts and increased cinnamon to 1 teaspoon. I made sure to underbake them a little and they were so gooey and lovely and satisfying that I ate two and felt like I had indulged. Quite possibly my new favorite Skinnytaste recipe! (And I cook almost exclusively from Skinnytaste).

I had 2 ripe bananas and was going to make banana bread...and then I found this recipe! So glad I did (thanks Gina)! Here are some of the praises I got from my husband and co-workers after they ate these:"they were the best thing you have ever made""I dont even like oatmeal cookies and I LOVE these""you should win an award for those!"